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Hello everyone, August on the west coast of Canada comes with a reminder of change. Dry forests and high temperatures are an unfamiliar feeling here, where rain often dampened my childhood summer holidays. Daily I am being reminded of how we must adapt and evolve in order to meet these changes. I’m thankful that as an artist I know how to meet hard things, how to navigate the unknown, and pivot when I need to. Art-making teaches us so much about how to live. In this month’s blog post I’m reflecting on a period of change and evolution in my art-making. It began with a quiet stirring and then became an undeniable driving force. I held fast to my commitment to see where I was being led, and now I’m sharing some of my insights about how to navigate a period of growth in art-making – what mindset do we need to hold to meet the natural evolution of our work? I hope you find it a helpful read. I have also received a few inquiries about The Artist’s Mindset Group Coaching Program for 2023, and you’ll find an update on that further along in this newsletter. Thanks so much for your continued interest in my offerings for Artists. And just a reminder that my monthly blog post is also offered as an audio recording, allowing you to listen rather than read. To listen to the recording just click on the READ MORE OR LISTEN button in the ‘FROM THE BLOG’ section of this newsletter and you’ll find the MP3 file on my website at the bottom of my written post. If you have any feedback for me, I always love hearing from you. Thank you for reading and sharing this newsletter…it truly is appreciated. PS: For those of you that are new subscribers I have included a link to find previous issues of my newsletter – full of additional resources for you!
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EVOLUTION IN ART IS INEVITABLE
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Sometimes in our art practice we feel the call to move elsewhere in our work. It seems to arrive as a stirring and a quiet dissatisfaction with what we’re making. It can arrive even if we have worked for a while and have developed a solid working structure and a recognizable voice. It can come even if we have had some measure of success with the work we have been making – both in how we feel about it and how it has been received. We may have been consistently focused on an aspect of our artistic development, working with a set of intentions, or building a body of work…and, we know this has benefitted us greatly, yet we feel compelled to move somewhere else. The work of an artist is to be attuned to these drivers that propel our work forward into new territory, as unsettling as they can be. And, more importantly, artists need to be willing to take risks in their work throughout their lifetime as an artist. Risking is the fuel of creativity, igniting our artist’s bones and drawing us towards something we have not yet discovered for ourselves. It’s how we are being called to evolve. It may begin with a feeling of dissatisfaction with where you are, or it may be a feeling of longing towards something yet undiscovered. However it arrives for us, we feel it, and we can welcome it with our curiosity and courage, because that’s what artists do. That is what keeps us alive in the work and how the work offers back to us another layer of meaning and deep connection to self. Creativity expands us and calls forth our growth. This is natural and something we want to embrace in our art practice. What often gets in the way of this evolutionary process in art-making is our attachment to where we have been, and the certainty that offers us. Art-making is inherently challenging by its very nature. It strips away the conventional approaches that we typically use in our day to day lives and asks us to trust the unknown, to go forward when we don’t know where we’re going, or if there will be anything of value when we get there. So, we hesitate and we convince ourselves that we’re better served to stay put…after all, it’s working for us. We’re making our art and we have an approach that we know works…why mess with that?
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INSPIRATION FOR YOUR ARTIST’S MINDSET
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IN THE STUDIO : BRICE MARDEN This month I was saddened, as many of you were, to hear of the passing of the acclaimed abstract painter, Brice Marden. He was 84 and ,reportedly, painting just days before his death. In this interview from October of 2009, with Harry Cooper, the curator and head of modern contemporary art for the National Gallery of Art, Marden shared much about his evolution in his work – what the sources were, his thinking, and approaches.
Many of us are familiar with his large gestural works, which were born in the 1980s after being influenced by an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy. This video reveals how he landed on what we recognize as his signature work. He also shares how he begins his work and what supports this place of inquiry. Marden likes to break his own rules and has been credited with extending the tradition of painting, finding the poetry in the work. It’s a privilege to have these intimate conversations with artists like Marden…we can learn so much from them and their work. He will be greatly missed.
You can discover more about Brice Marden’s work from this Artnews article released just after his passing.
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STUDIO VISIT : HELGA ROHT PONZANSKI Helga Roht Ponzanski is a watercolourist, painter, and fashion designer. She fled Estonia in 1944 and currently resides in the United States, where she graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
As revealed in the interview with Brice Marden, artists and their work are a product of their experience, history, and interests. In this interview Helga talks with curator Ruth Erickson, who is putting together an exhibition featuring Helga and three other artists included in the 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Helga’s abstract watercolour works are informed by her collage practice, which she offers us a glimpse into.
From her living room sofa, Helga sorts through a pile of images and papers, not thinking on purpose, as she describes it. She tells us, “I don’t make a collage and paint it. I put them all away and let them come back to me completely new.” This speaks so much to how artist’s fuel their creative work. Like Marden’s stick sketches, these collage exercises infuse her working memory with colour relationships and forms that guide her formal work. Be sure to visit her website and view her “early work” to see the evolution in her art-making, and what she carried with her over the years.
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IN THE STUDIO WITH CLAIRE TABOURET Claire Tabouret makes “fluffy landscape paintings” and monotypes for her Paris exhibition "Paysages d'Intérieurs" at Perrotin Gallery. These faux fur paintings were inspired by considering the work of artists that preceded her, like Morandi and others. She describes adding her own filter, and then using the substrate of faux fur as another filter, to bring the work closer to her own iteration of a layered and long told story of landscape painting. At the time of the making of this video, in November 2021, we were all coming to terms with isolation and loss due to the global pandemic. Tabouret describes how painting can offer us a place for meeting whatever is present and transmute it through our art.
”…my relationship to painting and to my studio helped me get through these periods of major upheaval, of big changes, and created a sense of continuity. So that no matter what happens, anything can become a subject worth painting, be it isolation, anguish, forced loneliness, willing loneliness. Any subject can provide a starting point…”
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–THE 30 DAY SKETCHBOOK CHALLENGE COURSE– Looking for a Fall boost for your art-practice? Watch for the details announcing my Fall 2023 Sketchbook Accountability Challenge…coming soon! The 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge Course is an affordable, content rich, self-guided course that can be started at any time, and is always available for purchase on my website. Once purchased you’ll have lifetime access to the course and can repeat the Challenge at any time in the future, giving your art-making the boost it might need.
This course also touches on many of the essential aspects of the Artist’s mindset – the ways we can think about and approach our creative work to move past fear and limitations, opening to what is possible for us. You can find out more about The 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge Course HERE. You can also email me at info@insightcreative.ca with your questions or for more info.
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–THE ARTIST’S MINDSET GROUP COACHING PROGRAM 2023– This signature 12-week program is the highlight of my coaching year, and I devote myself fully to supporting the artists who choose to join me. It’s an intensive, rich experience filled with tons of learning and interaction. Together we dive deep and I absolutely love assisting these artists in finding the resiliency and insights they need to work strongly at making their art. So it is with great regret that I am announcing that I will be unable to offer The Artist’s Mindset Program this fall. My small family is going through a very difficult time as my father faces the challenges of his late stage cancer diagnosis. It’s important to me to be available for this precious opportunity to support my family and spend as much time with them as I can. Life is a precious gift and I want to meet this moment fully. My focus and commitment will reside there for this year, and I look forward to spending time revamping my program and offering it again in 2024. As an Insight Creative subscriber you’ll be the first to hear about these updates to the program and will receive priority registration when the doors open.
Thank you for your support and understanding…it is greatly appreciated.
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For new subscribers – please enjoy these previous issues of my monthly newsletter. Thank you for subscribing!
Links to additional back issues can be found on the right sidebar of my blog HERE
If you know of any artists that could benefit from these monthly newsletters and/or my 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge Course, please share this email with them and invite them to have a look. They’ll receive my free PDF download on ‘How to Make a Creativity Journal’ when they do.
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Art-making is such a personal experience, always calling us forth and asking us to be more of ourselves, to trust more deeply and to show up for the work.
When we develop a healthy and resilient attitude towards the struggles we may be facing, we feel more balanced and set ourselves up for success. I hope this newsletter gives you some tools to help guide yourself towards more trust and awareness around your creative process. Thanks for being here…wishing you abundant creativity today and every day!
Warmly,
Cheryl Taves
info@insightcreative.ca
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